Samantha Stosur insisted her split with coach Miles Maclagan on the eve of Wimbledon wasn't the cause of her latest All England Club nightmare.
Stosur became the first major casualty of the women's tournament as the Australian 17th seed slumped to a 6-3, 6-4 first round defeat against Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer.
The former US Open champion has now failed to get beyond the third round in 12 appearances at the grasscourt Grand Slam.
Stosur, 30, served 13 aces and hit 25 winners, but still came up short against the world number 54, continuing a miserable sequence of seven successive Grand Slam appearances without getting past the fourth round.
The dismal defeat came just days after Stosur announced she was parting ways with Maclagan, a Zambian-born Scot who previously coached reigning Wimbledon champion Andy Murray.
But Stosur, who lost 15 of her 34 matches working with Maclagan and has failed to reach a final since the Hobart International in January, made it clear the split wasn't to blame for her dispiriting loss.
"No. I had some really great practices," she said. "I felt really good going into today's match. I didn't think about it at all.
"It's something that happened. I went out there today and unfortunately I didn't win.
"I don't feel like I played bad. In some ways it sucks because you're done, you wait another four or five weeks till you get to play again."
Stosur was also without a coach for two months last year after splitting with long-time mentor David Taylor just before the US Open and she revealed she is in no rush to appoint a successor to Maclagan.
"I'll start thinking about it now. I'm by no means in a rush to just pick someone. I want to really take my time and think about it and make sure I'm doing the right thing," she said.
"I still know what I want out of them. I don't think that's changing too much. But it's a hard thing.
"There's probably a handful of coaches that you might want to think about. They've probably all got jobs.
"It's not an easy thing to find that right person that you think is going to be that perfect match.
"I know enough about my tennis to know how to do it. But obviously if you're going to hire a coach, you want that person to obviously help in that process."
Stosur's poor performances at Wimbledon remain a mystery to the Australian, who will try to put the frustrating loss behind her as she focuses on her doubles challenge with Flavia Pennetta in the women's event and Nenad Zimonjic in the mixed.
"I'm pretty annoyed about it. I don't have an answer because I do feel I played well; I think she played well and she stuck to it right from first point to last point," Stosur added.
"I still think I'm a good enough player to get through first rounds here, and for whatever reasons it's not happening."
Source: AFP
